


No Line on the Horizon

by sc010f



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 01:44:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sc010f/pseuds/sc010f
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for thegameison-sh community on LJ. The aftermath of <em>The Great Game</em>. Warnings for character death and abuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Line on the Horizon

It's early when they wheel in the gurneys.

Her list: _three unidentified_.

The smell of smoke, debris, and dust overwhelms her.

Behind them, Detective Inspector Lestrade.

He is filthy.

Destroyed.

Fear shoots through her.

***

 _What are they doing?_

 _Obvious, John. Identification._

***

"We don't know… But we think… Sherlock…"

Lestrade's voice barely reaches her; she's just opened the first bag and seen a familiar face: dusty blond hair, matted with blood, a strong jaw, eyes still open – sightless, coated with a thick film of concrete dust.

The second is harder to tell – until she sees the hand – pale fingers, curved in supplication.

The third.

"Where did you get that bruise?" Lestrade asks her.

the days' corrosive light  
would reduce to dust these waves

  


***

 _Moriarty did that to her?_

 _Molly knew what she was getting into._

 _No, she didn't, Sherlock! None of us… you, perhaps._

 _We're still here._

 _Yes – why?_

 _No idea. Clever, though._

***

"I ran into a door."

Lestrade's silence is disbelieving.

The third bag holds the charred remains of an expensive suit.

"I'll need dental records to identify this one," she says.

But she knows it's not really the case.

Maybe the reason she feels sluggish is that she doesn't believe it yet. The evidence in front of her.

Lestrade stands by the door.

She turns to her grisly work.

***

 _She doesn't deserve to do this._

 _Who else could? She's good, for all her simpering. Watch how well she handles my skull._

 _Sherlock, that's morbid._

***

  


This is the only way particular words  
shelter us from the hell  
of their meaning

"You didn't get that from a door." Lestrade's voice startles her.

She doesn't answer – she's almost done, and if she can hold on, she'll make it.

"Who was he?"

She closes her eyes. Presses the palms of her latex-gloved hands to the cool table.

"Who, Molly."

She nods to the far exam table where her assistant is cataloguing bits of hair, teeth, fingers.

"He did. Yesterday. Two days ago?"

***

 _Oh, Molly…_

 _She knew what he was. She had to have known._

 _Nobody knows, Sherlock! When you're in love, you can't… You can't always tell what's good and not good._

 _Ridiculous. Molly's silly, but she's not…_

 _Silly? Is that what you call it? Sherlock, she's not a teenage girl! She's a grown woman – a doctor!_

 _Even doctors make poor choices, John._

 _You're incredible._

***

When Lestrade takes her face in his rough and filthy hands, the dam breaks.

"You should have said, Molly," he whispers, lips ghosting against the bruising beneath her eye.

She flinches back.

"Who would I have told?" Her voice grates and she spins away.

She is finished with her work.

***

 _Falling in love doesn't make you foolish, Sherlock._

 _No?_

 _Okay, so it sometimes makes you do things you shouldn't, but…_

 _Yes, John?_

 _We're dead – right?_

 _The evidence suggests it, yes._

 _Then, I need to tell you something._

***

  


There are beaches in the pages of this book  
where love itself might begin, and where  
we might even smile out from the poems.  
You will always be with me if I can write.

She is standing off to one side as she watches Lestrade walk past the gaping holes in the earth – side by side – of course they'd be buried like this.

"What you said," she says to him as he halts before her. "What you said was good. And… true."

***

 _She's right. Surely you can admit that?_

 _I admit it. It doesn’t stop her from ignoring the evidence right in front of her!_

 _Of course._

 _You stopped holding my hand. Why?_

 _It's not right – not at a funeral. And your brother would probably object._

 _Why? He doesn't care. And we weren't giggling._

 _It wasn't a crime scene._

 _Now you're giggling._

 _You're impossible._

***

"Look," Lestrade says. "Do you… I mean, tea?"

She smiles, for the first time in… she doesn't know how long it's been.

As they walk out of the cemetery, she leans into him, and his arm circles around her shoulders.

and we plunge deeper  
into red age, with the horizon  
of the treasure island always before us.

  


***

 _Are you ready?_

 _Yes, John._

 _Good, because I'm not letting you go. Again. Ever._

 _Eternity is a long time, John._

 _Plenty of time for you to get used to it, then._

***

Based off of this poem:

 **Postscript**

There are beaches in the pages of this book  
where love itself might begin, and where  
we might even smile out from the poems.  
You will always be with me if I can write.  
You will be me and I will love you in the darkness  
because the days' corrosive light  
would reduce to dust these waves  
of the sea that I gaze at with your eyes.  
This is the only way particular words  
shelter us from the hell  
of their meaning, and we plunge deeper  
into red age, with the horizon  
of the treasure island always before us.

 

—by Joan Margarit, translated by Anna Crowe, as it appears in _LIGHT OFF WATER: XXV CATALAN POEMS, 1978-2002_

**Author's Note:**

> Not mine, no money. Special thanks to Bluestocking79 for the beta-fu. Extra thanks to Irisbleufic for a marvelous challenge.


End file.
